How Housing Finance Embraced Digitisation For CX

Financial institutions have over the last 10 years been shifting from the conventional channels to a more digitised service offering. The shift has been accelerated further by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has created increased demand from customers for remote and alternative methods of accessing financial services. Housing Finance Bank is among financial institutions that begun their investment in digital transformation years ago, with an aim of creating more value for its increasingly youthful and tech savvy customer base.

Michael Opira, the COO at Housing Finance Bank, says along with innovation, their growth has been achieved through deliberate focus on the needs of the customers, and through skilling the staff to deliver the superior services that customers expect.

“Housing Finance Bank is now in the phase of its transformation where we are putting customers even more at the centre of the business. We understand that demographics have changed and most of the customers are now tech savvy and demand convenience. Banking must be on the go. It must be faster and yet secure. Technology has changed over time and it has changed how we deliver services to the customer,” he said.

In 2015, Housing Finance Bank introduced mobile banking and went ahead to introduce Internet Banking and Agent Banking in 2019. At the beginning of 2020, the bank delivered a corporate internet banking suite to the business and institutional customers, further augmenting their access to remote banking services which saved them a lot of time and money.

By investing in core banking solutions and new technologies like AI, the bank is also currently collaborating further with fintech and other technology stakeholders while packing the mobile banking and online banking channels with more value-added services to be able to meet the needs and exceed the demand of customers.

On the role of internal stakeholders, Opira said Housing Finance Bank is in the process of re-engineering internal processes in order to reduce touchpoints which create bottlenecks and affect turnaround time. He adds that there is a deliberate effort to invest more in the staff through training and empowerment to be able to support the changes and implement the evolving vision of the bank.